A Distant Stream of Stars May Offer New Clues to Dark Matter

A Hubble Space Telescope view of the ultra-diffuse galaxy UGC9050-Dw1 and a stream of stars from an associated globular cluster. The stream is shaped by the influence of dark matter. Credit: STScI, Holm, et al.

Dark matter continues to challenge astronomers as they work to solve the mystery of this so-far-unseen material that permeates the Universe. It's not that the stuff doesn't exist. It does, but we just can't see it. The only way it can be detected is by its gravitational effects on ordinary matter. A team of researchers led by University of Copenhagen PhD student Julie Kiel Holm has found a stream of stars stretching out more than 3,000 light-years from a globular cluster that appears to have been shaped by dark matter in a distant galaxy.

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